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Saturday, November 12, 2011

Dancing Lights


acrylic on canvas, 30' x 30'

Flashing back to the spring of ’03, I was invited to be in a show called “The Sofa Art Show”. The artist organizing the show instructed all participants that works could not be smaller than 30’ x 30’. Well, normally I avoid making artwork that size because working space and storage space is limited at home. Even in the classroom, where I was teaching at the time, space was limited there too. Well, all I had to do was create the one piece and show up for the hanging.

So what did I want to do for imagery? Well, by this point I was wearing glasses for night driving. The glasses helped with making far away signs much clearer. About this time I also started to become more interested in the little blinking dots in the background of movies – that is, when a person was in focus in the foreground while the background was out of focus. Because of what was happening with my eyes, I was now more conscious of the effect. So, that led to the subject of my painting, circles of light at night.

Only recently did I run across terms for the dot display of lights. Both involve photography. The first word I noticed was circles of confusion. Wikipedia’s explanation is a bit complicated, but the general gist is what interests me. Then I noticed a word at the bottom of the page under See also. The word is bokeh. It comes from the Japanese word “boke” meaning “blur”. Anyway, I don’t want to get too bogged down with this other than to state that it is newer facet of my dot art process.

When this piece hung in the show, I received a lot of positive feedback. Since then I’ve posted this on a website and even on this blog. Several people have been moved enough to write to me a bout it. I did create this at the end of an exhausting school year; so, the painting was created in that environment.

2 comments:

  1. I've been catching up on your posts, Mo. Interesting to read about the history of some of your work. I like this Dancing Lights piece. It reminds me of how the Christmas tree lights look when I take my glasses off and squint at the tree. The lights get all soft and out of focus, but I like them that way. :-)

    Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!

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  2. Daisy:

    Thank you.

    'Good to know that my painting works. : )

    Happy Thanksgiving to you too!

    Mo : )

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